By way of inference and deduction. Death was not part of Adam and Eve's existence until after sin occurred...which is when God declared that shall surely die. These "defects" were not likely present until after God's original design was corrupted by the entrance of sin into the world.

I completely disagree with you. Contrary to what the ToE claims, there is nothing random or unguided in a living organism’s ability to develop the mechanisms and controls for adaptation when it cannot know that adapting to different environments is necessary. This is not just some accidental development. The theory comes awfully close to suggesting an element of intellect at work capable of storing information for future use when necessary. And this says nothing of the biological processes that would have been required to even develop these mechanisms and controls. Although the Wiki article you linked to indicates this theory refutes ID, I think it does quite the opposite.

I find it rather peculiar, given its plausibility, that the theory hasn’t received more attention. I suspect it may be because it excludes the level of random mutation which is so embedded in evolutionary thinking that it will take time. On the other hand, it could be because many are seeing it the same way I am?

It's your prerogative to disagree, but it's my prerogative to expect you to provide real evidence to support your assertions, especially since you want them to be taken seriously. So far, you haven't in any reasonable fashion. What you have provided are quote mines and citations from creationist websites (including the ones which propound "intelligent design"), which I have said are not convincing. Multiple times, in fact.

The very fact that you have to view a theory like facilitated variation through the lens of intelligent design for your perspective on it to make sense is one of the single most telling arguments against intelligent design. The thing about scientific inquiry and discovery is that you don't have to view it via a certain perspective in order for it to make sense and to work. You just have to follow where the evidence leads. So far, you're trying to lead the evidence and hoping others will follow.

I suspect you still have not actually read about facilitated variation aside from skimming a couple of texts so that you can "interpret" it the way you need/want it to be interpreted. Because even reading the abstract makes it extremely clear just what facilitated variation really is. Simply put, the core processes (DNA/RNA transmission) facilitate the generation of phenotypic variation which is then affected by natural selection in order to cause evolutionary change in organisms.

You claim that this must mean it was put in deliberately in order to anticipate environmental changes. With no evidence, of course, only your own emotional beliefs that it must be so. And furthermore, you ignore the ways in which this theory demolishes the basis for intelligent design. For example, the idea that the periodic explosions of varied life forms in the fossil record require external intervention in order to come about is negated entirely. Relatively simple and unvaried organisms can quickly and easily generate the variation they need in order to spread into a multitude of environments, without any deliberate intervention from outside the system. It also explodes a number of other creationist fallacies, such as "in His own image" and "it's too improbable".

Furthermore, you make the assumption that the only way a system like this could have come about is if something knew in advance that organisms would need this kind of adaptation. Since you made that assumption, I'm not surprised that you then conclude that something had to have intervened in order for a process like facilitated variation to exist. The problem is, this assumption makes things more complicated, as "intelligent design" is wont to do, and in a way that actually reduces its usefulness, predictive power, and capacity to explain the universe we live in. You have to posit something which could intentionally and deliberately do things like this, and ignore the implications, most notably that this "something" would either have had to develop that capacity or something like it on its own, or something else would have had to give it that capacity. All the way down, in the latter case.

By way of inference and deduction. Death was not part of Adam and Eve's existence until after sin occurred...which is when God declared that shall surely die. These "defects" were not likely present until after God's original design was corrupted by the entrance of sin into the world.

Contrary to what the ToE claims, there is nothing random or unguided in a living organism’s ability to develop the mechanisms and controls for adaptation when it cannot know that adapting to different environments is necessary. This is not just some accidental development. The theory comes awfully close to suggesting an element of intellect at work capable of storing information for future use when necessary. And this says nothing of the biological processes that would have been required to even develop these mechanisms and controls. Although the Wiki article you linked to indicates this theory refutes ID, I think it does quite the opposite.

It really does not matter whether the organism is living. There is an inevitability about nature. As circumstances change, the object will be changed or organism will survive to breed or die.

A geological formation will be changed by the climate; soft rocks washed away and harder ones remain. This takes no intelligence or guidance.

So with organisms. A slight ability to run faster will improve your chances of catching prey and not being caught. There is no intelligence in this, it is simply the way your genetic code works for you.

The classic explanation is

Creationist: Design requires a designer – it couldn’t arise by random chance!Me: Would you say that order requires an orderer?Creationist: Yes.Me: So why is it that all the small cornflakes send to settle at the base of the box? Do you think it’s because God put them there?Creationist: No – it must be, well, gravity pulling the small flakes down.Me: Wouldn’t gravity have pulled the large flakes down as well? Why do the small flakes fall further?Creationist: I don’t know.Me: It’s because small flakes fall through large gaps, but large flakes can’t fall through small gaps. The flakes sieve themselves. Random shaking of the box coupled with a non-random filtering law (which we might call “the furthest-falling of the smallest” or “the persistence of the largest”) leads to an ordering of flakes over time, with no intelligent input required. Random shaking is analogous to random mutation, and “the survival of the fittest” (Natural Selection) is analogous to “the persistence of the largest”. Cornflakes and living things are both self-ordering systems, filtering out smaller flakes and deleterious mutations respectively. Cornflakes become more organised over time, and organisms become better-adapted.Creationist: There must be more to it than that? There must be! There has to be!http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/11/30/on-the-origin-of-specious-arguments/Dr Robert Stovold

Quote

On the other hand, it could be because many are seeing it the same way I am?

Your numbers are falling as education succeeds in bringing you out of the flawed assumptions of the 18th century and into the light of the late 19th.

Do you have no feeling that in 100 years time, people will be saying, "And, as late as 2012, in America, people believed in Intelligent design! We think this was probably because they thought that God had to be involved in creation of life."?

I am sure that your way of thinking can be quite difficult at times, as the evidence has long since been established, all the explanations have been given and yet still you have to avoid the awkward cognitive dissonance of having to accept what the majority of the educated world knows to be so.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

So, again, BS, no evidence for your claims. No demosntration that you understand any of this? No, just a emoticon. That's about what you're claims have been worth. I do have to admit that I am enjoying your antics thoroughly. It's not everyday that a Christians consistently lies. I do wonder, what does that say about your faith? That you thikn your god is a vending machine of "forgiveness". it seems that you think your god has to forgive you, even if you repeately and intentionally lie "for" him.

Since we have no evidence for your god or that it ever made anything, much less made things perfect, you've failed again, BS. You have yet to show your premises to be true and that your conclusion is true. You have yet to show any evidence of your mistaken claims about your strawman version of evolution.

Poor BS, you claim to be unable to see why creationism hasn't gotten the attention it "deserves". It certainly has gotten that attention. It's been shown that every creationist liar who claims that ID isn't creationism is lying and that creationism has nothing to support it. There is *nothing* that has demonstrated that creationism/ID is probable much less plausible. I will admit that I do enjoy your antics, BS. Nothign like a bit of schadenfreude created by your own willful ignorance to brighten my day.

EDIT: Nice link below BS. Thanks for showing again that ID is just creationism dressed up in a lie.

« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 02:50:06 PM by velkyn »

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

but it's my prerogative to expect you to provide real evidence to support your assertions, especially since you want them to be taken seriously

..................................

You claim that this must mean it was put in deliberately in order to anticipate environmental changes. With no evidence, of course, only your own emotional beliefs that it must be so.

Until you, or someone, can demonstrate otherwise, then I can most certainly interpret what I have examined in a manner I feel is reasonable, logical, and rationale. And, with all due respect, this applies to much of the rest of your post, too.

You (not me) introduced “Facilitated Variation” into this discussion with nothing more than a link to a Wiki article and a comment that indicated it refutes Intelligent Design. No real argument for its merits or an analysis on why you felt it refuted ID. When I asked you for some additional reference material to help me gain a better understanding on what you had introduced, you impolitely suggested I use Google.

I found several articles that explained in more detail what the theory intended to demonstrate. After reading through this material, I determined that it favored Intelligent Design and I explained why….and I could continue to elaborate but I know how you will receive it as you’ve made it crystal clear already that you find it supportive of evolution theory.

I find it rather puzzling that you lecture me on what is necessary to demonstrate my position when, as I pointed out above, your original argument came in the form of an unsupported comment and a Wiki article. You have made additional subsequent comments but nothing along the lines of what you are demanding from me.

Since my last post, I have located an article that provides a rather thorough evaluation of ‘Facilitated Variation’ with a conclusion very similar to mine. Seems I am not alone in my assessment. If you would like to read it, here is the link:

It sure looks like it was...... but I do not recall at this moment what specific processes are involved in the making of a snowflake so I cannot answer your question short of what would be nothing more than my opinion.

Despite what many claim, Intelligent Design is not interested in negating the entirety of the ToE. Rather, it offers a scientific alternative view for explaining how complex life came to be.

First, how life came to be is not the ToE. So you fail there. Furthermore ID is not an alternative since it has no explanatory power. It's only an alternative in the same way that beheading is an alternative medicine.

Unless some other scientific discipline can prove that life arose and developed as a result of some other process or event, ID presents a plausible alternative view.

No BS, ID has to first prove that it can offer a credible alternative perspective that has similiar explanatory and that it actually has evidence to back itself up. An idea is not plausible just because somebody came up with it.

This, again, is something you should be well aware of by now. Especially if you had actually looked at science even a fraction of as much as you claim.

I'm curious when we can expect you to stop lying. Anytime you want to feel free.

At best, depending on how you want to apply what ID science offers, it helps us get a closer look at the level of complexity and intricate detail of the world we live in.

Actually that's not at all true. There is no complexity in ID.

Compare from Wiki:

"Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.[1]

Life on Earth originated and then evolved from a universal common ancestor approximately 3.7 billion years ago. Repeated speciation and the divergence of life can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by shared DNA sequences. These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories, using both existing species and the fossil record. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction.[2]"

"Intelligent design (ID) is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[1][2] It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, presented by its advocates as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" rather than "a religious-based idea". "

"ID seeks to redefine science in a fundamental way that would invoke supernatural explanations, a viewpoint known as theistic science. It puts forward a number of arguments, the most prominent of which are irreducible complexity and specified complexity, in support of the existence of a designer.[4] The scientific community rejects the extension of science to include supernatural explanations in favor of continued acceptance of methodological naturalism,[n 3][n 4][5][6] and has rejected both irreducible complexity and specified complexity for a wide range of conceptual and factual flaws.[7][8][9][10]"

The entire basis for ID is "we can't explain it, so some magic man did it". It's about as complex as two ball bearings rattling around in a tincan.

By way of inference and deduction. Death was not part of Adam and Eve's existence until after sin occurred...which is when God declared that shall surely die. These "defects" were not likely present until after God's original design was corrupted by the entrance of sin into the world.

As god is the creator and organizer of everything, you mean after god let sin into the world to corrupt his design. Which he made susceptible to sin in the first place.

Until you, or someone, can demonstrate otherwise, then I can most certainly interpret what I have examined in a manner I feel is reasonable, logical, and rationale. And, with all due respect, this applies to much of the rest of your post, too.

No you can't. You can interpret them in a manner that is logical and rational, but not in a manner that you feel is logical. Logic and reason have rules and guidelines for them, BS. Your feelings do not factor into it. Even if we don't agree with the conclusion we should be able to acknowledge the logical process used to get there. Which is something that you can't even present.

This is how we can tell that you don't really care about having a real conversation. You have no interest in actual logic, just your logic (which is barely recognizable as such).

Aside from obviously being ridiculous BS (very fitting considering who linked it). The article just talks about a lot of different theories and ideas with no indication that it actually knows what it is talking about. There is no evidence presented, just talk about the various "laws" that govern life.

Including the Law of Degeneration, which is a religious concept. (I guess BS has stopped trying to pretend thatID isn't Christianity by now) Also the Law of Modules (which seems to be a law school term) and various other misuses.

It sure looks like it was...... but I do not recall at this moment what specific processes are involved in the making of a snowflake so I cannot answer your question short of what would be nothing more than my opinion.

Until you, or someone, can demonstrate otherwise, then I can most certainly interpret what I have examined in a manner I feel is reasonable, logical, and rationale. And, with all due respect, this applies to much of the rest of your post, too.

And you are perfectly free to do so. You are also perfectly free to be completely wrong and to ignore all attempts to correct your misapprehension of the subject. And, with all due respect, I do not consider this to be reasonable, logical, or rational. Whether you, personally, think you are being so, your posts indicate otherwise, and you have ignored or disregarded every single attempt by anyone to point this out to you.

Quote from: BibleStudent

You (not me) introduced “Facilitated Variation” into this discussion with nothing more than a link to a Wiki article and a comment that indicated it refutes Intelligent Design. No real argument for its merits or an analysis on why you felt it refuted ID. When I asked you for some additional reference material to help me gain a better understanding on what you had introduced, you impolitely suggested I use Google.

I've noticed that when you are pressed about something, you nitpick things that other people say in an effort to paint them as being the unreasonable ones, while you wrap your own posts in a seeming rationality in order to contrast their behavior and yours. This is what you're doing now, to me.

Yes, I introduced facilitated variation into the discussion, and I linked the Wiki article. What you failed to consider is that I intended that Wiki article to be nothing more than a starting point, and that other people (including you) could then look up further information on their own. That is why I told you to use Google if you wanted to find out more. I have myself been told to use Google to look up information on various things once the subject was introduced. So now you complain because I expected you to research this stuff on your own, instead of giving you all of it up front. You aren't a schoolchild who needs to have everything presented to you in easy-to-digest packets.

Quote from: BibleStudent

I found several articles that explained in more detail what the theory intended to demonstrate. After reading through this material, I determined that it favored Intelligent Design and I explained why….and I could continue to elaborate but I know how you will receive it as you’ve made it crystal clear already that you find it supportive of evolution theory.

Right on cue, another excuse for why you don't intend to actually support your pronouncements with real evidence that can stand up to scientific inquiry. And you wonder why your ideas aren't taken seriously? You blew off my rebuttal of your argument entirely in favor of an accusation of bias (that I would not even listen to you because I thought differently). I beg to differ, and I think other people here can attest to this.

Quote from: BibleStudent

I find it rather puzzling that you lecture me on what is necessary to demonstrate my position when, as I pointed out above, your original argument came in the form of an unsupported comment and a Wiki article. You have made additional subsequent comments but nothing along the lines of what you are demanding from me.

You haven't yet demonstrated your position on intelligent design effectively, let alone this new contention of yours. That's why I'm lecturing you about what's necessary, because it's evident from your actions that you don't really understand the requirements. As to your complaint, when you can show that your contentions have valid merits (and thus that you understand the requirements needed), then I will be happy to meet you on those terms. Would you expect a trained black belt to use the same level of skill necessary to spar with another black belt against someone who had never passed a rank test? It's the same thing.

Quote from: BibleStudent

Since my last post, I have located an article that provides a rather thorough evaluation of ‘Facilitated Variation’ with a conclusion very similar to mine. Seems I am not alone in my assessment. If you would like to read it, here is the link:

Another argument pulled from a creationist website? I'm not surprised that another creationist (and for all your talk about how it's really "intelligent design", your reference to Biblical creation makes it clear what you really think) would come to similar conclusions, but you need to find someone who comes to those conclusions using actual science that they thoroughly understand for it to be even remotely convincing.

BS, why the desperate attempts to try to claim that you have scientific evidence for creationism and thus your god? All you would need to say is "I believe" and that would be essentially that. Then you wouldn't have to lie about your arguments being logical or rational.

It seems that you and other creationists are trying to convince yourself and other creationists that your god exists, more than any atheist. Right now you are cornered, left with what does amount to "I believe it so that makes it true".

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"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

Another argument pulled from a creationist website? I'm not surprised that another creationist (and for all your talk about how it's really "intelligent design", your reference to Biblical creation makes it clear what you really think) would come to similar conclusions, but you need to find someone who comes to those conclusions using actual science that they thoroughly understand for it to be even remotely convincing.

Something else that I just noticed as well, most of that is simply copy-pasted from other papers and websites. And he left out a lot of his sources as well.

Logged

"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

So now we have an addition to the Intelligent part of the ID argument. If we find defects and problems with the "design" well, that still does not disprove ID. See, the original design was perfect, since it was designed by a perfect intelligence. But something screwed up the perfect design, so today we see imperfect design--unintelligent, sucky, accidental, but good enough design. Those imperfections might seem to support evolution, but not really.

Now how do we make that jump from a perfect original to a sucky later version? If you have a perfect recipe or formula, it should never turn out bad. ID raises far more questions than it can ever answer, because the premise does not make sense when we look at the real world.

Perfect Adam and Perfect Eve had knees that would never deteriorate from arthritis, throats that would never choke, no wisdom teeth, arches that would never fall. Their eyes had no blind spots and they could see ultraviolet light. So they had bodies completely different from what we have today. They must have been like space aliens.

Did their blood clot? Why would it have to? Were their teeth self-cleaning? Did their fingernalis and hair grow? Did Eve have hairy armpits and legs? Did they sweat, and if they did, did they have body odor? Were they covered with and filled with helpful bacteria to keep all the systems working right or did everything work without all the millions of little critters?

Did Eve ovulate? Did she have a period? Were PMS, cramps and anemia part of the original design or not? Eve's pelvis had to be way wider than women of today, so she would not have to worry about obstructed labor. Although she was a wide as a barn, and her legs were located on the outside of her hip bones, she had no problems walking....

How would you suggest I go about doing that....effectively?...in light of the fact that ID has been rejected as a form of science.

Honestly, use the scientific method. Compare the evidence (and not from creationist websites, because they usually do not have much evidence, if any) to what you think intelligent design requires, and see if intelligent design can explain that evidence in a way that is internally consistent and not contradicted, and be willing to consider whether it might be wrong. That's one of the hardest things someone can do. And if it is wrong, be prepared to revise or discard your explanation based on how it's wrong.

Well no, ID specifically requires a deity, a creator, at the end of a chain consisting of n links. It REQUIRES one, because they specifically rule out "chance" or evolution at ANY link in the chain. If it didn't, they they'd need to teach (as truth) the ToE also, to account for the starting link....and they really don't want that.

ID in its truest form does not imply that a deity was responsible for life on this planet, merely that some form of intelligence was.

ID, in it's truest form, is Christian theology dressed up with science-sounding words.

That's the source of it, that's the intent behind it, that's the goal of it's proponents. Now you could possibly interpret it as not needing a creator, however that is not it's true form, nor is it what it's creators intend.

By the way, BS. I'm still waiting for a response on the fact that ID clearly advocates a Christian theistic agenda and the Christian God. I provided evidence showing that you were wrong. Where is your evidence to the contrary, or do you concede the point?

And furthermore where is your evidence of an ad hominem that you backhandedly tried to claim that I engaged in?

While we're on the subject, I forgot to also point out that the courts don't seem to agree with you about it not being about god either. That's why it was rejected from being taught over and over again. That's why even in the Dover trial the conversative Christian judge said that it was advancing a religious agenda and threw it out.

ID is based on the teleological argument, which is one of the three basic religious arguments for the existence of god. The same tired argument that Aquinas tried to use. It is an attempted redefinition of creation science after they realized that they couldn't get it past the courts. At the dover trail the lawyer for the evolution side pointed out that many of the old creationists documents had just had a find replace done to change a few words around. As Wikipedia says:

The modern use of the words "intelligent design", as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry, began after the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), ruled that creationism is unconstitutional in public school science curricula.[35]A Discovery Institute report says that Charles Thaxton, editor of Of Pandas and People, had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist, and thought "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term".[36] In drafts of the book over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "Creation Science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design",[13] while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, "cdesign proponentsists". [sic][35] In June 1988 Thaxton held a conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma, Washington,[23] and in December decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement.[37] Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "the term came up".[38]Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and was the first book to make frequent use of the phrases "intelligent design," "design proponents," and "design theory", thus representing the beginning of the modern "intelligent design" movement.[39]

Or we can take the words from the Discovery Institute itself.

"Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".

This is a statement from the infamous "Wedge Document". This outright states the Institutes every intention to use ID to promote Christianity. The document then proceeds to say this:

""I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. [...] Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? [...] I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves."

This very well indicates the nature of what ID really is. They are not interested in anything intellectual. Their stated mission starts off by just assuming that anything science says about evolution is false right out of the starter gate. They say that it's false and terrible logic but by their own admission they are taking that as the default position, with no mention at all of the evidence involved. They then go on to state that the only way to get the truth is to start from the position of the bible being true, and that anyone who doesn't use that position is automatically in delusion.

So where exactly in this so far is the evidence that ID isn't really about promoting Christianity? Why didn't you mention any of this when you were trying to tell everyone about ID? Did you just not know? You who claims to know so much about ID.

"My colleagues and I speak of 'theistic realism'—or sometimes, 'mere creation'—as the defining concept of our [the ID] movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology."

This man (who I remind you is one of the leaders of the movement) not only says that the Christian god is one of the defining concepts of ID, but also declares his god to be objectively real and that the reality of his god is tangibly recorded in science and biology. Funny how that evidence is never actually presented, but I digress.

He also defines realism itself along the lines of his theistic views.

I would also point out that he's clearly lying here when he says that god is 'objectively' real, as an objectively real god would be undeniable to everyone and we would not actually have over 40,000 different religions in the world. So not only is he wrong but he is obviously, stupidly, and easily verifiably wrong. More to the point we once again have rather clear evidence that ID truly is all about promoting the Christian God, despite what they might attempt to say in public.

So how exactly do you support your claim that ID is not at all about promoting a Christian agenda? Did you need more evidence because I can most assuredly provide it.

As an aside, I'm also curious about what you have to say about the words and testimony that Barbara Forrest gave during the Dover trial when she was asked about ID.

""What I am talking about is the essence of intelligent design, and the essence of it is theistic realism as defined by Professor Johnson. Now that stands on its own quite apart from what their motives are. I'm also talking about the definition of intelligent design by Dr. Dembski as the Logos theology of John's Gospel. That stands on its own. [...] Intelligent design, as it is understood by the proponents that we are discussing today, does involve a supernatural creator, and that is my objection. And I am objecting to it as they have defined it, as Professor Johnson has defined intelligent design, and as Dr. Dembski has defined intelligent design. And both of those are basically religious. They involve the supernatural".

Logged

"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

So, I decided to take a crack at that article BibleStudent linked. I will let my conclusions speak for themselves.

Quote from: How life works, by Alex Williams, http://creation.com/how-life-works

Life is not a naturalistic phenomenon with unlimited evolutionary potential as Darwin proposed. It is intelligently designed, ruled by immutable laws, and survives only because it has a built-in facilitated variation mechanism for continually adapting to internal and external challenges and changes. The essential components are: functional molecular architecture and machinery, modular switching cascades that control the machinery and a signal network that coordinates everything. All three are required for survival, so they must have been present from the beginning—a conclusion that demands intelligent design. Life’s built-in ability to adapt and diversify looks like Darwinian evolution, but it is not. Darwin’s theory of speciation via natural selection of natural variation is correct in principle, but it cannot be extrapolated to universal ancestry. What we see instead is different kinds of organisms having been designed for different kinds of lifestyles, with enormous potential for diversification built-in at the beginning, but with time this potential for diversification has become depleted by selection and degraded by mutations so that we are now rapidly heading towards extinction. Intelligent design and rapid decay point to recent Creation and Fall, as the Bible tells us.

First off, just this initial paragraph makes it extremely clear that the author considers intelligent design to point straight to Christian religious beliefs, specifically young-earth creationism, evidenced by his reference to a recent Creation and Fall. He makes not even the slightest effort to include any other possible interpretation of intelligent design except for the one that he personally believes in, which comes straight from his own religious beliefs.

There are also other problems. For example, he has a classic example of circular logic - he presumes that life is intelligently designed from the start, states that it survives because of facilitated variation and that the components of this must have been present from the beginning, and concludes that this requires intelligent design. No evidence, just a circular chain of logic. He goes on to state that facilitated variation mimics the process of evolution, but that it actually proceeds from different kinds of organisms designed for different lifestyles, and that the potential diversity of organisms has diminished greatly over time (due to selection and mutation), meaning life is rapidly headed towards extinction. I can only assume this is based on the usual misunderstanding of mutations being only negative and detrimental, and the belief that life cannot diversity beyond its initial starting point. Again, no evidence to back any of this up as far as I can tell.

He goes on to discuss various "laws", such as biogenesis, Darwinian evolution, irreducible structure, survival, facilitated variation, inverse variation, code variation, signals, modules, and degeneration. The problem is, these are not laws in any sense. It may be convenient to describe them as such, but that is no excuse in something which presumes to explain "how life works". At best, they are theories which have been verified experientially. For example, biogenesis is a refutation of the long-held belief of spontaneous generation, but to describe it as a law is to overstate its conclusions. Similarly, "Darwinian" evolution is incorrectly described as a law, and Williams simply declares without evidence that evolution cannot be extrapolated beyond the various ancestral species.

Next, we come to irreducible structure, a statement (made by a polymath named Michael Polanyi) that the physical and chemical properties of biological molecules are constrained by ordering principles, which is true enough as far as it goes. However, Polanyi did not speculate on the precise nature of these ordering principles, which Williams calls "coded information". He then states that according to biogenesis, there is no source for DNA except previous DNA, a conclusion which is only appealing in its seeming simplicity. Following that is survival, in which he again declares his theological explanation of the Fall being why life eventually dies, which he incorrectly attributes to biological mutation. He then declares that an intelligent designer would naturally give organisms self-repair and self-maintenance mechanisms, and would also build in a reproductive capacity to cope with the eventual breakdown of the first two. Leaving aside the circular logic which led him to conclude that there had to have been an intelligent designer in the first place, it is in no way guaranteed the way he assumes that such systems had to have been built in before life happened. It is not particularly likely either, as the first organisms could have developed a reproductive capacity first to take advantage of the lack of competition, and developed the other two later in order to facilitate being able to reproduce.

He then follows with the statement that environments have changed dramatically during Earth's history, and thus life would have had to continually vary in order to survive. Except that he ignores the fact that environments do not necessarily change all that much, and an organism which has developed in such a way to be able to survive with little change across a broad range of environments would have no need to continually vary itself. He considers such organisms to be on the verge of extinction specifically because they do not show much variation, based on his flawed idea that variation can only be exhausted by selection and depleted by mutation.

He then goes on to talk about facilitated variation, where he again makes the mistaken declaration that mutations only create defects and monsters. If he had actually studied what mutations really are, he would understand that most mutations are benign - they do not noticeably affect an organism, or affect it positively. In any case, he gives a description of facilitated variation which I will grant is a fairly accurate layman's understanding of the science involved, even if the terms he uses are questionable. However, he ignores the fact that, since most mutations are benign, such a mutation can easily increase the number of variations possible, so these organisms do not need to have all of their variations "programmed in" from the start. They can gain new variations from such mutations, which outweigh the damage caused by harmful mutations. And even some harmful mutations can generate unintended side benefits, such as sickle-cell anemia's ability to resist malaria - a variation that could not have happened without the harmful mutation of red blood cells.

He then discusses inverse causality, which he claims is necessary because facilitated variation requires the "basic processes" described earlier in order for life to happen at all. This is an assumption, which I have already demonstrated is not a valid one; self-repair and self-maintenance can have developed as the need arose (an organism without those will not instantly die), and reproduction can happen due to external processes rather than internal ones. It does not need to be present in an organism[1]. He further describes the development of characteristics in a zygote which are only "useful" in an adult as being inverse causality, which is incorrect. The true cause of those developing characteristics is their usefulness in the adult, passed down through genes into offspring. The "future need" that Williams talks about is a red herring; in actual fact, a zygote does not "prepare" against future or anticipated need, it reacts to past need, expressed in its parents. That is how traits are passed down, and it is how traits that are not present in the adult can be in the offspring, because the pressures of the environment facilitate variation in the adult's gametes in order to increase the likelihood of those future offspring surviving.

His discussion of code variation is little more than an elaboration on facilitated variation which he barely acknowledges by referring to "Kirschner-Gerhart properties", which are actually part of facilitated variation. In essence, he takes facilitated variation, adds on his invalid assumption of inverse causality, and then claims that code variation expresses this inverse causality, when in fact there is no inversion of causality in the first place. The variation of genes in a zygote depends on the genes passed down by its parents; the causality is from the parents to the child, not from "future need" back to the child. His discussion of signals is basically the same thing, an elaboration on part of the facilitated variation theory which he mistakenly assumes is a "law" because of prior "laws" which are not necessary.

And finally, he discusses degeneration. While Williams is correct that DNA accumulates damage over time, he is emphatically not correct in his claim that variation which is not expressed through reproduction simply vanishes. This is again because of his prior assumption about mutations and his failure to recognize the benign nature of most of them. So while degeneration within a single organism is inexorable, it is anything but within life itself. This goes for what he describes as epigenetic degeneration as well, which can much more accurately be described as epigenetic changes. The fact that genes change as they are passed down in no way means that those changes are only negative. So his belief that extinction is inevitable simply because total possible variations are reduced is incorrect, and it ignores most of the effects of natural selection which also incorporate into the process

So, to conclude, Williams's entire article is based on faulty premises, faulty assumptions, and faulty conclusions. It contains enough genuine information to seem compelling, but breaks down very quickly upon examination by someone reasonably competent in that particular field. In other words, he depends on the credulousness of his readers to accept his argument without skepticism; a reader who did not come in with a similar preconception of Biblical truth would not be convinced by this article, simply because they would expect more compelling evidence to support Williams's conclusions.

For example, most people do not consider viruses to be "alive" because they cannot reproduce on their own, but it is entirely possible that the earliest life forms operated in a similar fashion to viruses, "invading" inanimate matter in order to generate copies of itself.

his god created perfect people, and then "sin" made them imperfect, but points at the imperfect human body and creation as evidence of "intelligent design" which we *all* know means that his god was the designer.

and bravo, Jaime, for being willign to do that review.+1

Logged

"There is no use in arguing with a man who can multiply anything by the square root of minus 1" - Pirates of Venus, ERB

Maybe you misunderstood. I wanted to know how one recognizes "design". You recognize a blue jay by noting a fattish bird, ultramarine in color, with black and white trim, and a crest. What are the hallmarks of design? How can I differentiate "designed" from "not designed"?

And since the snowflake was designed, how did the designer get it from the "drawing board" through "production"?

I have a handful of comments I would like to make regarding your last post but I do not have time to address all of it at the moment. I do have one quick question, though, based on something that jumped out:

He then discusses inverse causality, which he claims is necessary because facilitated variation requires the "basic processes" described earlier in order for life to happen at all. This is an assumption, which I have already demonstrated is not a valid one; self-repair and self-maintenance can have developed as the need arose (an organism without those will not instantly die), and reproduction can happen due to external processes rather than internal ones. It does not need to be present in an organism[1]. He further describes the development of characteristics in a zygote which are only "useful" in an adult as being inverse causality, which is incorrect. The true cause of those developing characteristics is their usefulness in the adult, passed down through genes into offspring. The "future need" that Williams talks about is a red herring; in actual fact, a zygote does not "prepare" against future or anticipated need, it reacts to past need, expressed in its parents. That is how traits are passed down, and it is how traits that are not present in the adult can be in the offspring, because the pressures of the environment facilitate variation in the adult's gametes in order to increase the likelihood of those future offspring surviving.

I could be misunderstanding your contention here so please bear with me. You seem to be contending with Williams assertion of ‘inverse causality’ by invoking a Lamarckian type of evolution….which is what the authors of ‘facilitated variation’ indicate is incorrect. Aren’t they saying that previous ideas about “use” and “disuse” causing inheritable changes were wrong?

---> Also, real quick. I agree with your comments about the author’s strange attachment of the word “law” to various topics. That struck me as a bit odd, too, but I didn’t give it much thought. If he added it “for effect” then shame on him.

---> Last thing….(and I am in no position to speak on the author’s behalf)…..I did not sense that he lacked an understanding of mutations. If he does, then he should not be writing articles like this one. Given his credentials and basic understanding of evolution, I tend to think he was merely pointing out the fact that mutations which do effect change usually does more damage than good and has affected large portions of the population to the point that, he believes, is advancing extinction. I didn't take his comments to mean that all mutations are bad and if you think he should have been clearer on that, I wouldn't disagree.